Ukraine Proposes to UNESCO to Include Carpathian Churches in World Heritage List

Presidential adviser and head of the Department on Humanitarian and Sociopolitical Issues Hanna Herman reported at a press conference that Ukraine proposed to UNESCO to include Carpathian churches in the World Heritage List.

She said that wooden architectural monuments were being ruined in Ukraine and Poland for years. According to her, the proposed project is aimed to preserve what is possible to preserve. The presidential adviser noted that the churches are ruined by the local communities themselves, who restore them in a non-professional way.

The Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Committee of Ukraine for UNESCO jointly with the Ministry of Culture of Poland prepared a special transborder nomination “Wooden Churches of the Carpathian Region of Ukraine and Poland” in order to include the most valuable monuments of wooden sacral architecture in the list of world heritage of UNESCO. Objects in the Transcarpathian, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv Oblasts of Ukraine and in two voivodeships of Poland have been included in the list of the monuments.  

Simultaneously, Ukraine prepared another application to UNESCO to include in the World Heritage List “the ancient town of Chersonese of Tavria.”

In January 2012, both nominations were submitted to the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris. A representative of the Ministry of Culture, Andrii Vinhranovskyi, said at a press conference that they hope that the nominations will be considered at the 36th session of UNESCO next summer and positive decisions will be made, UNIAN-religion reports.